You are here

Columns/Opinions

I have always told my kids and grandkids that lying to me about a certain act they did and knew to be wrong is almost always worse than doing the act itself. I was greatly hurt if I was lied to. Of course I was referring to childhood and adolescent mischievousness, but I think the concept remains the same.

John Coleman is the kind of guy you’d put at the very top of the list of people to invite if you were planning a party. He’s about 80 years old, a cheerful, gregarious, friendly fellow who has no compunctions about speaking

his mind, no reservations about right and wrong, and no time to suffer fools

Anita Adams and Jackie Maxcey, daughters of Jack W. Owen, made a presentation on November 13, 2014 to the San Saba County Museum during the meeting of the San Saba Pierian Study Club. The Pierian Club met for their regular meeting with a tour of the San Saba County Museum and were welcomed to the museum by LynnBlankenship, Clione Rochat, and Aileen Roberts, the museum delegation, that led the tour and graciously accepted

the Owen girls contribution to the museum. Both ladies made a short commentary on their memories of their dad and his inventions, as that was like his hobby, and his influence in their lives

From time to time, readers send email or call to pose similar questions: “Is your Uncle Mort real?” My unvarying rhetorical response is: “Do you want him to be?” I sense their sinking feelings, let down by my failure to provide

Our history is disappearing. Slowly, inexorably, our past is slipping away, bit by bit, into the, well, the past. We’ve become a nation intent on the future, and while the future is important, even vital, my opinion is that the future does us no good without a past. Our own past. One of the most overused buzzwords lately is ‘moving forward.’ OK, that’s two words, but you know what I mean. You hear it constantly from politicians, talking heads on television, celebrities. They seem to think it makes them sound like they’re on the ball, like they have a grasp of what needs to be done, like they understand what’s going on around them, and know how to solve problems, win friends, and influence people.

Start of the 114th Congress: The start of the 114th Congress marks the first time that Republicans have been in control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in eight years. This is an opportunity for us to make headway on policies that have been stymied by a Democratic Senate for too long. This week, I had the honor of officially becoming the 50th Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.

It’s hard to believe it’s already been a year since this time a year ago. By now most everyone should have had plenty of time to take a long, hard look at his or her New Year’s Resolutions, carefully evaluate his or her personal

chances of achieving his or her personal goals for the coming year, and adjust his or her expectations to make them more realistic..

I have to admit, sometimes I am easily aggravated by stupid expressions. If you have ever studied a foreign language, you will appreciate how hard it is for a non-native speaker to learn the English language. Then,

yearly, we add challenging new slang to the mix, as well as other expressions that literally make no sense.

Turkeys, I suppose, are unaware that their “jobs” in life are to gobble down granular foodstuff in a timely manner that will render them prime menu targets for us to gobble down—particularly at Thanksgiving and Christmas

My regular, loyal readers (all 2 of them) are no doubt looking forward to this week’s column, since they’ve probably heard about the recent National Geographic Drunk Bird story, and expect me to wax eloquent about it. If not that, they may have caught wind of the 100 brains that went missing from the University of Texas, and expect a story about that, although my Aggie friends have expressed the opinion that they weren’t aware of 100 brains at UT to begin with